At the 2005 World Summit, Governments of all nations agreed that “progress for women is progress for all”. Yet the 10-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action revealed a serious gap between policy and practice in many countries. A lack of political will is reflected in the most telling way of all: lack of resources and insufficient budgetary allocations. That is why the theme of this International Women’s Day is “Investing in Women and Girls”.

This failure of funding undermines not only our endeavours for gender equality and women’s empowerment as such; it also holds back our efforts to reach all the Millennium Development Goals. As we know from long and indisputable experience, investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity and sustained economic growth. No measure is more important in advancing education and health, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS. No other policy is as likely to improve nutrition, or reduce infant and maternal mortality.

In New York today, GCAP members are focusing on the theme of this year’s CSW, “Financing for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment,” calling for increased financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment as well as support for an improved gender equality architecture of the UN.

GCAP’s Feminist Task Force (FTF), which was founded three years ago at these same meetings of the CSW, will present the progress made alongside the findings of International Women’s Tribunals on Poverty, which were held in India and Peru in 2007.

Ana Agostino, GCAP Co-Chair and spokesperson for the Feminist Task Force said: “Poverty cannot be eradicated without equality and justice for women. Current international policies rob women of livelihoods, healthcare and other economic rights, while feeding fundamentalist backlash and militarism that deprive women of personal autonomy and choices. Our demands are fundamental to breaking through this paradigm, they are not cosmetic, they need dedicated funding and integration into all existing policy decisions.”

Interesting graph of Good Magazine, in association with the designers of OPEN, NY: While half of the world’s population is female, only 10 percent of our leaders are. Hence the blurry face. This design is part of Transparency, a series of fresh graphical representations of data that surrounds us. It certainly gives out the message that it’s time to focus on Goal 3 of the Millennium Development Goals (Promote gender equality and empower women)!

The recent murder on three lesbians and the sacking of a deputy health minister overshadowed the celebration of National Women’s Day, a public holiday in South Africa.

The day commemorates the national march of women on August 9, 1956 to petition against legislation that curtailed an African's freedom of movement during the apartheid era. The women sang a protest song of which the phrase: "you strike a woman, you strike a rock" has come to represent women's courage and strength in South Africa

South Africa's 1996 constitution, one of the world's most progressive, was the first in the world to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. However, these murders showed the country is failing to live up to its constitutional promise to protect all its citizens, the international rights watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.